An Irish online accounting technology firm has struck a deal with Deloitte in Australia that will see the Big Five accounting giant roll out online professional services to thousands of businesses Down Under.
The deal transforms accounts software from an office-based application to something that resides online and can be paid for from operational spend, as opposed to a large capital investment.
The technology, which was developed in Ireland by AccountsIQ, will be offered as an online service through the Deloitte Digital division as an own-branded solution.
Deloitte Digital is pioneering the delivery of online professional services in Australia, which to date have included benchmarking tools, online education and collaboration products, compliance and HR solutions.
It expects AccountsIQ to play a central role in expanding the services it offers, helping it to change the paradigm for delivery of professional accounting services.
“Businesses are becoming increasingly impatient with the inflexibility and cost of traditional financial systems,” said Peter Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital.
“AccountsIQ provides customers with the ability to securely record transactions, monitor performance and prepare financial reports. We see this as a fundamental change in the way accountants work and in the type of the work they can do.
It changes the nature of the client-accountant relationship from a ‘once a year’ contact to an ongoing conversation, from accountant to business advisor. It includes collaboration capability such as a clever bulletin board feature, which allows our accountants and clients to post messages for one another in a secure online forum,” Williams added.
The AccountsIQ technology provides users with online access to customised dashboards that highlight key financial information, single entry for tax reporting and finance management, integration with online banking, data backup and multiple entity consolidation for reporting purposes.
Speaking with siliconrepublic.com from Australia, AccountsIQ chief executive Tony Connolly said the deal with Deloitte was struck after a rigorous evaluation process.
“Deloitte looked at everything in the market and chose ours. Deloitte Digital sees online delivery of accounts solutions as a way of bringing value to businesses by combining technology with a professional service.
“The technology provides businesses with affordable access to full accounting software including inventory control, sales order processing and multi-currency transactions. The technology is also valuable for storing vital documents online.
“Deloitte evaluated the way accounting has traditionally been done by businesses and found that 30pc of the time the client was swapping files over and back, whether on disk or cutting and pasting numbers in to Excel documents. It sees businesses enjoying huge productivity gains from this.”
As the service will require monthly subscriptions, the value of the deal could be worth millions to AccountsIQ in the coming years.
Connolly said it has always been the company’s strategy to work with large accounting firms such as Deloitte. “Fundamentally this opens us up to the Asia-Pacific market, and Deloitte, as one of the top accounting firms in the region, is the ideal reference customer.”
By John Kennedy